Heretofore, as water-soluble photosensitive resin compositions for the formation of a screen printing plate, the formation of black matrix or phosphor pattern of a color cathode-ray tube or the formation of a color filter of CCD and LCD, natural proteins such as gelatin, casein, and glue combined with a bichromate salt, or water-soluble polymers such as hydrolyzed polyvinyl acetate combined with a diazonium salt have been used. However, these photosensitive resin compositions have problems of environmental pollution and poor storage stability.
Further, a photosensitive resin composition based on a water-soluble polymer such as polyvinylpyrrolidone combined with a water-soluble bisazide compound is also used. However, this composition has a problem of low sensitivity.
Therefore, development is being conducted for high-sensitivity photosensitive resins. For example, Laid-open Japanese Patent Application Nos. 4-26849(1992), 2-204750(1990), 2-173007(1990), 2-92905(1990), 1-302348(1989), 5-197141(1993), and 5-11442(1993) disclose azide polymers having azide groups in the side chain as high-sensitivity photosensitive resins.
These azide polymers are high in sensitivity, but still have problems of complicated production process and poor storage stability.
Further, as a water-soluble photosensitive resin which is high in sensitivity and good in storage stability, Japanese Patent Publication 565761(1981) discloses styrylpyridinium group pendant polyvinylalcohol (abbreviated as "SbQ-PVA"), but this photosensitive resin has a problem in that a satisfactory resolution cannot be obtained because the photosensitive resin is inferior in water resistance and thus tends to swell during developing.